Online Resource for Business

The Government must reform statutory maternity and paternity pay to give small businesses certainty over employee’s family leave, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said in a new report today.

Good user experience is about enabling your visitors to complete the task they set out to achieve when they typed their search term into Google. It is the most important element in satisfying the needs of your visitors. If a visitor achieves their task on your website they are unlikely to go to your competitors.

You have invested in the development and the promotion of your website and you are getting a level of visitors but how many are being converted into customers. Are they presented with barriers on your site? How can you find out?

Book an independent user experience evaluation of your website so you can identify what your customers perceive from the site. During the two hour evaluation you will resolve the following:

• Are you answering your customer’s questions? (Task analysis)
• Is your information architecture customer focused? (Paths to task completion)
• Has your web developer committing design convention violations?
• Can your customers read and understand your content? (Language of the customer)
• Is the site optimised for the customers?(User Groups)

Contact Nigel T Packer on 01639 820984 for further information on Website Usability reviews and to book yours. or email nigel@businessforbusiness.co.uk

(A user experience evaluation review costs £250 plus VAT, please allow up to 2 hours for the feedback session.)

Business for Business Internet Marketing Ltd is an internet marketing Knowledge company, not a web design company. We provide independent e-Business advice and knowledge in the development of effective business websites that meet user experience guidelines, engaging the visitor and converting them into customers. The choice of web designer or web developer is yours.

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Further education (FE) Colleges in Wales make a significant and vital contribution to the economy of Wales. Visit any college and you will see a huge range of vocational and other courses taking place, delivered to large numbers of students aged of all ages, attending full-time or part-time and taking subjects varying from pre-entry to postgraduate levels. Local employees may be attending courses to top up their skills. Away from College, specialist staff may be working on employers’ premises.

Considerable investment has equipped classrooms, workshops and salons to a high standard. New buildings in many colleges reflect the education and training needs of the 21st Century.

In 2008/09, 207,000 learners enrolled in Colleges. 79% of these were part-time and 70% were adults aged over 19, many of whom are in work.

Times are changing. As a result of mergers, the number of colleges is likely to have fallen from 25 in 2008 to 19 by 2012. The largest colleges will have a turnover of over £45m. Colleges are working in partnership with schools and universities to deliver exciting new opportunities. In 2008/09, WAG provided over £330m to FE colleges, just over 75% of total income. But funding is tight and, just like private and public sector businesses, colleges are looking to share services and find other ways of cutting costs

Colleges have invested heavily in raising standards. 84% of grades awarded in the past four years by Estyn – the inspectorate in Wales – are either outstanding or good. Student success rates – the proportion of learners who enrol and succeed in obtaining a qualification – have risen from around 40% in 2000/01 to 76% in 2007/08. This is a tough challenge as colleges do not pick and choose their students.

Meeting the skills needs of their locality is central to colleges’ missions. Colleges have links with over 25,000 employers annually, many of which are SMEs. In 2009/10, 21 colleges delivered publicly funded work-based learning (WBL) courses, receiving around £28m from the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG).

Engagement with employers takes three major forms. First, Colleges engage closely with employers in the design, development, management and delivery of learning to improve the ‘work-readiness’ and employability of learners. Secondly, they offer direct services to employers, including training needs analysis and bespoke training services. These courses are often offered as full-cost’ and are not subsidised by WAG. Thirdly, colleges form strategic partnerships with employers, other providers and national/regional agencies to meet the skill needs of local areas.

Colleges have made important contributions to three key WAG programmes. ProAct has provided funding to employers to train employees at risk of being made redundant or moving on to short time working. The ReAct programme enables recently redundant workers to enrol on courses to promote vocational skills. The innovative Pathways to Apprenticeship programme provides the College-based element of an apprenticeship programme for young people unable to find employment.

Leighton Andrews, Minister for Children, Education and Lifelong Learning, acknowledged the key contribution of colleges in his address to the CollegesWales annual conference. He emphasised their central role in raising skills levels and as central partners in addressing the economic downturn.

The second annual report from the Wales Employment and Skills Board (WESB) highlights the importance to employers of ensuring that all people entering the labour market posses appropriate basic skills in literacy, numeracy and Information Technology. It also emphasises the importance of social skills including motivation and the right attitude. Colleges now assess all students enrolling on courses lasting at least five hours per week. They find that basic skills levels are much worse than the official figures – in some cases over 50% of students have literacy and numeracy problems. Colleges are working hard to raise these skills levels. But what have these students have been doing in their 12 years of schooling?

As fears rise of a double dip recession, it is even more crucial that Wales has a skilled workforce – with specific skills and a relevant level of basic and social skills – for employers to draw on as the economy recovers.

External research in Wales and Scotland indicates that FE colleges in Wales contribute just over £2bn per year to the Welsh economy. The funding of colleges needs to be treated as a long term investment in the future of the Welsh economy.

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Downshifting traditionally means moving down a gear or changing to a simpler, less stressful life. Normally it is about moving to a rural location – buying a smallholding, growing vegetables, keeping chickens……

British workers are increasingly quitting their stressful office jobs to pursue the dream of doing something they really want to do. For many, it involves starting a small business in the country or, increasingly, abroad.

They get rid of their big mortgage by selling their house, hand back the keys to their company car, forget about school fees and learn to manage on smaller earnings to enjoy a better existence.

Research by Barclays suggests this so-called downshifting has more than doubled in the last 10 years with now 60,000 people a year quitting jobs in mid-career to start new businesses in rural areas. The phenomenon has also spawned a wave of TV and radio programmes, including BBC1’s Downsize Me.

The desire to downshift is often driven by people experiencing a lack of challenge in their jobs. Instead of jobs growing more interesting, they have often got duller. Many jobs are desk-bound. New technologies, such as video conferencing, mean people travel and get out less. They are often bored to death.

Nothing is more stressful than uncertainty, particularly in something as important as a person’s livelihood. Add to this the hassles and expense of commuting and it’s hardly surprising that more people are finding the best job is working for themselves, usually from home. The number of self-employed in Britain has soared by 80% in the last two decades to 14% of the workforce.

Every office is full of people who wish they weren’t there for a host of reasons: too much stress or wasteful office politics, the ghastliness of commuting, frustration with management and constant changes, or the simple desires to choose their own lifestyle, to be with the family more and live somewhere nice.

But anyone wanting to set up a small business for a better quality of life might be in for a big shock. Many have attempted to run guest houses and bed and breakfasts in rural idylls – only to find their new life more stressful than the one they left behind.

People need to ask themselves whether it is a dream or a viable proposition. A job in the City might be stressful but at least it earns good money. You could be just swapping one set of pressures for another.

Downshifts can often be dismissed as people dropping out of the mainstream. But they are often people who really want to test themselves. They don’t want to play more golf; lie on a beach or travel round the world on a camper van. They are often people who want to take on an even greater challenge.

Many would agree there are few bigger tests than running your own business. And whether you are in rural Powys or south-west France, you will face many of the same business pressures as someone in a big city.

So first you must try and figure out what it is you really want to do. It may be easier to start by deciding what you don’t like about your current job. Then ask yourself honestly whether just changing your job or your employer but staying in the same field would not solve most of them. If not, a more radical approach is needed.

Whatever your next career, you will probably take a cut in income, at least initially. So work out what you need to survive, as opposed to maintaining your current standard of living.

Making a success of downshifting – like setting up any small business – is often all down to planning. People need to go and work in someone else’s second-hand bookshop or guest house first – to see what it is really like – before taking the plunge.

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Business crime is a big issue – and SMEs are falling victim to e-crime and must be prepared to deal with the reality of falling victim to this crime and have a strategy to deal with it.

The stark reality is that 64% of businesses fall victim to crime over a twelve-month period, and crime costs each business an average of £13,354 a year. The uncertainty in the financial markets is a concern for many small businesses, and an effective response to tackle crimes that are eating away at our local communities and national economy is now more important than ever.

Crimes targeted against small business are on the rise. Crime affects a business’ ability to meet customer deadlines and attract customers and adversely affects its profitability, ultimately resulting in businesses closing down and jobs and local economies being put at risk.

Businesses, and their staff in the local community, are victims of repeat crime in the form of vandalism, vehicle damage and threatening behaviour. Crimes against business make up a significant 20%, or the ‘Forgotten Fifth’, of all recorded crime in the UK.

It is within that context that it is worrying to note that Fraud and online crime is on the rise and is a growing concern for small businesses particularly in the current economic climate.

In volume terms, instances of low level crime against a business such as vandalism or criminal damage are more frequent, however, the issue with fraud and online crime is that one event can be highly disruptive and even force a business to close.

Small businesses need to take steps to protect themselves but are also relying on an effective response to fraud and online crime from the police, banks and other relevant organisations.

The FSB surveyed its members in 2008 about the issues of fraud and internet crime and it is of huge concern that 54% of businesses have been a victim of fraud or online crime and a significant 26% of businesses are deterred from buying and selling online because of the fear and risk of online fraud and a significant 37% said that phishing emails had been a problem.

15% had been targeted by card-not-present fraud (where card details are fraudulently used for transactions over the phone or internet), and 15% said that IT systems issues (such as viruses, hacking, denial of service attacks) had been an issue.

However, one third of businesses currently do not report fraud or online crime to the police or banks, 23% believe that it would not achieve anything but businesses are positive about the options for improving the response to fraud: 53% want clearer information about how and where to report these types of crime, and 44% want a specifically named contact in their local police force responsible for tackling fraud and online crime.

So what about the costs to the business of online fraud ?

In over half of cases (54%), the cost of online crime and fraud was negligible to businesses. However, fraud also seems to hit businesses between the £500—£4999 bracket (12%), which, over a twelve month period, are significant sums to small businesses.

A significant 29% of businesses have been a victim of card not present fraud where 22% had received a chargeback (most frequently below £1000). 52% think that the bank/payment company should take greater responsibility for the chargeback fee, particularly where authorisation has already been given.

Where it is relevant to their business, 13% are implementing the Payment Card Initiative Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) (which ensures that businesses securely store information on their customers and clients) but the most common feedback was that the initiative was not well tailored to small businesses.

With these findings as the background, the FSB produced a policy document last year outlining a response to online crime and fraud against SMEs and made the following key recommendations in relation to online crime and fraud:

1. Businesses need a central, accessible and well-advertised reporting centre for both fraud and online crime to enable them to report these types of crimes in a straightforward way;

2. The National Fraud Reporting Centre and Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) must work hand in hand in order to set up an effective system of gathering intelligence which feeds into investigation and prosecution;

3. Businesses that report fraud would appreciate feedback on how the information is being used to tackle fraud and online crime with information about successes;

4. Businesses are keen to have access to a local police contact on fraud and e-crime to answer queries. There is clearly a need for the National Fraud Strategic Authority and Police Central e-Crime Unit to work on rolling out effective training to all police forces; and

5. All Regional Fraud Forums should devise effective strategies to engage and communicate with small businesses and offer advice on fraud prevention.

We are now on a route out of recession and the recovery is still very fragile. Crime against business is seen in many areas as a soft victimless crime, but as we all appreciate here, that isn’t the case. And it certainly is not the case amongst Wales’ small businesses.

Our SMEs are often family run enterprises, with a small dedicated workforce and so instances of crime and fraud against them hit hard and often lead to significant distress and loss for the business.

And we are ahead of the game in Wales with initiatives such as e-crime Wales which has been groundbreaking and must remain a funding priority for WAG.

So this is why forums such as the one set up by the University of Glamorgan, the Wales Fraud Forum, are extremely welcome and it is why the FSB is pleased to be involved and will do whatever it can to publicise and promote the venture amongst our membership and amongst SMEs across Wales.

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